Mascot
by flashwitch
Summary: Steve runs. People see Steve run. Steve gets adopted by the neighbourhood he runs through every week day morning. He finds this confusing. Tony finds it amusing.


**Fluff, basically. I was getting sick of writing Angst (although a very little bit of Tony!Angst snuck in anyway).**

* * *

Mondays through Fridays, Steve runs. He gets up at five, warms up, and then runs through the city. He loves running in the mornings, when it's as quiet as New York ever gets. It feels peaceful. It also helps him to get to know the city as it is now, overlapping his memories of how the city used to be.

His route takes him past a bakery, and he always stops to smell the bread and cakes being baked, ready for the breakfast rush.

One morning, when he stopped outside the bakery and took a deep breath, the door opened and a short round woman in her late teens or early twenties peeked out, wiping her hands on an apron.

"Why don't you come inside and taste something for a change?"

"I thought you weren't open yet, ma'am."

"We aren't. But we've seen you around. And you look hungry." She waved a hand. "Come on, the cookies have just finished baking."

He followed her into the warmth of the bakery.

"Ah, so he came in, did he?" a slightly older woman asked.

"Of course he came in," the oldest of the three replied. "No one can resist our Rebecca. Or our cookies."

"Well, I'm Ruth, I'm Rebecca's mother, and this is my mother Hannah."

"I'm Steve." He perched on a stool and watched as the ladies kneaded a mass of dough, greased trays and mixed batters. "Do you make everything fresh daily?"

"Oh, yes. We stake our reputation on our goods." Ruth smiled at him. "We have to have everything fresh and hot from the oven."

"Speaking of, chocolate chip or oatmeal?" Rebecca went over to a cooling rack and grabbed a plate from the shelf above it.

"Chocolate chip please."

"And you'll need a glass of milk," Hannah added, turning to the fridge. Steve didn't object; he liked milk. But he did find it slightly strange that they were catering to him like that.

"Oh, dear." Ruth smiled at him as her mother handed him a glass of milk and her daughter put a plate over-flowing with cookies on it in front of him. "You look rather overwhelmed."

"I am, rather. I was just going for a run."

"We know, dear. We've seen you run by here more times than I can count." She didn't stop shaping dough into neat rolls. "We've seen you stop and smell the bread baking. We just thought we could offer you something."

"Why?"

"You do realise the whole neighbourhood has adopted you, right?" Rebecca asked, and he mentally took a few years of his estimate of her age. He also choked on a mouthful of chocolatey goodness.

"No, what?"

"Yes, dear. We know who you are. You saved our city. You and those other strange people." She set the rolls of dough down onto a baking tray and turned around to put them in a hot oven. When she turned back to him, she laughed and raised an eyebrow. "Oh, you're blushing! But it's true, you saved _our_ city. And you chose to run in _our _neighbourhood."

"Besides, you saved Miriam from being mugged just last week. I play Bridge with her." Hannah smiled gently, and Rebecca laughed.

"Bridge! We all know you drink moonshine and play poker, Nana." She grinned at Steve. "Besides, you helped my friend Jack just the other day. He was getting beat up on his way to school, and you came and chased those idiots off. Now, no one messes with him because you saved him."

"I just... I was in the right place at the right time, that's all. Anyone would have done the same."

"Oh, dear. you don't know how to take a compliment, do you? We're New Yorkers, son. We don't put our necks out for just anyone. But every single person in the neighbourhood, maybe even the city, would help you out. You need to know that." Ruth patted his hand, leaving a ghostly flour impression behind. "You're one of ours."

"Yeah. you are." Rebecca poured the cake batter into twenty four red white and blue cupcake cases. "Besides, crime has gone down 12% since you started running through here. When more criminals hear you're around, there will be even less crime. Taking care of you is just good for business."

Steve wasn't sure what to say to that, so he just drank some more of his milk.

"I should probably finish my run..." he offered, and the three women exchanged the sort of pitying and kind smiles that Steve had got a lot of since he joined the army. He got even more since he woke up in the future.

"Alright. Here, I'll box up some cupcakes for you and the team." Ruth grabbed an assortment of cupcakes in various flavours and put them in a colourful box for him. "Come back whenever you want."

"Thank you, ma'am."

"He called me 'ma'am'! That's so cute!"

Steve ran on, blushing.

* * *

It started happening a lot after that.

About a week after the Cookie Incident, as Steve was calling it (the others were calling it the Magic Cupcakes Incident), Steve was on his bike. He wasn't really paying attention to anything but the wind and the speed. So, he didn't notice his gas gauge going down. When the bike eventually sputtered to a stop, he was completely surprised. He pulled his bike up onto the side of the road with ease. He stood there for a minute, trying to figure out what had happened.

"You outta gas?" someone called.

"Yeah, it looks like." Steve shrugged. He tried to remember where the nearest gas station was. He could get there pretty fast by serum power, but he didn't really want to leave his bike. It's not that he thought anything would happen to it, it was more that he didn't want his bike to be out of his sight. It was the first time in weeks he'd had the chance to just ride. Which was why he'd lost track of his fuel consumption in the first place.

"Excuse me," he said and turned to the young man who'd called out to him about the gas. "But do you know where the nearest gas station is?"

"Don't worry about it man, just wait here." Steve frowned, but the young man smiled at him and nodded, willing Steve to believe him. So, Steve gave him the benefit of the doubt. He sat down on the kerb next to his bike, and the young man sat next to him.

"Tyrone," he said, offering his hand.

"Steve," Steve said, and shook it.

"Yeah, I know who you are, man!" The kid seemed to find it hilarious that Steve had introduced himself. "We all know you round here."

"Oh." Steve looked away.

"Don't be like that, man. It's a good thing. You're like our neighbourhood mascot or something. My Mom, she saw you running the other day on her way to work. She said you looked like a nice man."

"I try. Tell your Mom thanks for me."

"Sure, sure."

That's when a car pulled up. Several men in their twenties got out. None of their trousers seemed to fit them and they had long undershirts on with nothing over them.

"Can I help you?" Steve asked.

"Nah, bro. We're helping you. Kid called, said you needed fuel." One of them popped the trunk and there were two gas cans full of fuel in there. "We were near gas station anyway."

"Oh, thank you!" Steve opened the fuel cap and they poured it on in. "How much did it set you back? I can pay you."

"No way!"

"We don't want your money."

"Man, your money's no good round here."

"Alright then." He laughed, and held up his hands at the torrent of denials. "Thank you so much." He shook their hands one by one and gave them the number for the cellular phone Tony had forced on him. he always forgot he was carrying it, but... "You boys call me if you need _anything._"

"We will!"

Steve swung his leg over the bike and rode off.

* * *

Three days after that, Steve was in a diner with Tony. They were eating pancakes and bacon. Steve had rather a lot, because hey, Super Metabolism. But when they tried to pay the check, the owner came over and waved them off.

"You know your money's no good around here by now!"

"Please, ma'am. I ate a lot of food. I don't want to not pay my way."

"Steve, what's going on?" Tony asked, looking far more amused than he should.

"I run through here every morning. Well, not on weekends. But they seem to have adopted me. No one will let me pay for anything, and they all go out of their way to do what they can for me."

"Wow. Just wow. And you have a problem with this?" he shook his head. "Of course you do."

"I don't need their charity. And I don't want to put anyone out of business. I ate a lot today."

Tony looked from Steve to the diner owner and sighed. They both looked ready to out-stubborn the other.

"So, you won't take Cap's money?"

"That's right! He's _our _hero. No offense."

"None taken, believe me!" Tony mostly found the situation amusing (but if he was honest with himself, he did feel a little twitch of hurt that they liked Steve better than him). "My question is, do you have anything against taking _my_ money? I _am _a billionaire after all." A billionaire who had (through the Maria Stark Foundation) poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into this area... not the point.

"Well, I guess I don't have a problem with that, Mr Stark. Although you'll get free coffee and your choice of dessert whenever you come in. Same for those other guys."

"I get coffee, he gets whatever he wants? What did you do to these people?!"

"I told you, I run through here."

"And you help us!" The diner owner frowned at Tony. "Mr Rogers runs through here every weekday morning. Most mornings, he stops a mugging, helps someone with their groceries, helps scrub graffiti off the walls. He doesn't just save the world. He _helps._" Then Tony got it. Steve was the human face of heroism to them. Steve was doing all sorts of everyday heroics right in front of them.

"I get it. No, really I do. Here. Keep the change." He handed her a handful of bills and slid out of the booth, suddenly sober. Steve thanked him profusely; he really wasn't comfortable with strangers just giving him things. He didn't realise that they were just trying to pay him for the things he was doing for them.

* * *

The week after that, they saved New York from an army of killer monkeys. Yeah, that happened. Seriously. He went on his morning run the day after the attack, and didn't come back to the Tower until well after dark.

"Hey, Cap. Where've you been all day?" Bruce asked, from the sofa. "We missed you at dinner."

"Sorry," Steve winced. He'd been the one who had insisted on 'family style' dinners.

"You didn't answer the question," Clint grinned. "Were you out with a girl, Steve?"

"No, I was just..." Steve blushed and rubbed the back of his neck. "I went on my run this morning. And things were pretty messed up by the monkeys."

"Ah. You stopped to help out and lost track of time?" Tony smiled softly, his real smile. Steve liked that smile much better than Tony's publicity smile. "These are the people who've adopted you, right?"

"What?" Natasha sat up, and smirked.

"How have I not heard about this?"

"What are you talking about?"

"He's adopted?" This last was from Thor, who looked upset.

"Tony just means that the area I run through has kind of made me their mascot."

"They really have." Tony grinned.

"Wow."

"Seriously?"

"This I have to see."

* * *

The next day, all the Avengers ended up tagging along with Steve and helping with the clean up.

(But everyone in the neighbourhood knew Steve was _their_ hero).

* * *

**This may be the first in a series, because the initial idea had Steve finding a box of puppies. Which, you may have noticed, appears nowhere in this fic...**


End file.
